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Trevor Kavanagh, Murdoch's political correspondent who has been with him every dodgy step of the way since the early days is accused of using illegally obtained call data to force LibDem MP Simon Hughes to come out.
Kavanagh sits on the "independent" Press regulator IPSO.
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TWEETED BY HUGH GRANT
Anonymous evidence from former News Intl employee re Murdoch to the CMA. A spark in the fireworks box. Amazing.
[and therefore now on the government website]
During the period News of the World operated Rupert Murdoch took a direct, personal interest in
that newspaper, looking at key news stories especially political ones. He personally authorised a
number of payments for politically oriented ‘news’ and checked all payments over £100,000 in later
years.
There was a direct link between M15 and the NOW editor, allowing that agency to drop off tips that,
ultimately, were used for political blackmail. The sudden closure of NOW had two hidden objectives.
First to conceal the scale of political surveillance by the paper, and the de jure blackmail operated by
the paper. Secondly, to conceal the link with the Security Services and the Whips Offices in
Parliament.
Between 2009 and the closure of the paper extensive ‘weeding’ was undertaken in order to
eliminate signs of blackmail, especially in relation to political stories.
Rupert Murdoch’s personal interest in his UK media is political, not journalistic. This is evidenced by
both the way he handled the NOW in particular but also in the news agenda of the Sun, Times and
Sunday Times. All run a right wing agenda but more profoundly all ignore, most of the time, stories
that might expose this bias and which might damage or embarrass parties Murdoch is supporting in
Government.
Former News International Employee.
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I was under the impression that everyone was generally aware of all that
Now that he is in almost daily contact with 45 (having been distanced by previous GOP Presidents), Uncle Rupert is using Fox, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in a not dissimilar way.
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Mindblowing from Ken Clarke on Murdoch and Cameron.
"Quite how David Cameron got the Sun out of the hands of Gordon Brown I shall never know," the veteran Tory MP said. "Rupert would never let Tony [Blair] down because Tony had backed the Iraq war. Maybe it was some sort of a deal. David would not tell me what it was. Suddenly we got the Murdoch empire on our side."
He continued: "We won in 2010 and I found myself justice secretary, lord chancellor. Within a week or two we had got Andy Coulson on board – I think he was Murdoch’s man, that was part of the deal I assume – as the press officer. I am not being totally indiscreet. Nobody seemed bothered by it very much."Within a few weeks of taking over my prime minister arranged a meeting with Rebekah Brooks. Rebekah Brooks described herself as running the government now in partnership with David Cameron. I found myself having an extraordinary meeting with Rebekah who was instructing me on criminal justice policy from now on, as I think she had instructed my predecessor, so far as I could see, judging from the numbers of people we had in prison and the growth of rather exotic sentences.
"She wanted me to buy prison ships because she did accept that the capacity of the prisons was getting rather strained, putting it mildly, it was not the way I described it.
"She really was solemnly telling me that we had got to have prison ships because she had got some more campaigns coming, which is one of her specialities. I regarded this as a very amusing conversation and took not the slightest notice.
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And a threatened judicial review of Ofcom's handling of the Sky bid
"Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, Sir Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leadership candidate, Kenneth Clarke, the former Conservative chancellor, and Lord Falconer, the Labour peer and former lord chancellor, claim in a letter to the government that there was a “fundamental failure” in Ofcom’s investigation into the proposed £11.7bn takeover of Sky by 21st Century Fox. Fox is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his sons, Lachlan and James.
The MPs say that the media regulator did not properly consider allegations of sexual harassment at Fox News and the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World as part of a review into whether a combined Fox and Sky would be committed to meeting broadcasting standards.
When these factors are taken into consideration against the correct legal threshold, then the bar is met for a detailed investigation into broadcasting standards by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), they add."
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- Apr 2011
- 2053
- A bottom-bottom wata-wata in Lake Titicaca
- Atlético Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca Pan flutes FC
- Buñuelos Arequipeños
Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View PostMindblowing from Ken Clarke on Murdoch and Cameron.Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View PostMindblowing indeed.
The Rebekah Brooks’ power grab attempts certainly do not surprise me one bit given that it’s been an open secret for years that successive gvts have been grovelling to Murdoch and his vile ilk for decades.
There was of course what he famously said to an Evening Standard hack many years ago: "When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice."
It wasn’t just a bon mot, it’s how it bloody works with Murdoch. We (and the British press) preferred to joked about it all these years ago (while mocking other European countries for their "subservient media") but the jokes have worn wafer-thin now and we have to live and deal with the consequences.
From Lance Price, a former Blair adviser:
Rupert Murdoch is effectively a member of Blair's cabinet
Only a spin doctor would deny that the media baron has a say in all major decisions taken in Downing Street
[...]
There is no small irony in the fact that Tony Blair flew halfway round the world to address Mr Murdoch and his News International executives in the first year of his leadership of the Labour party and that he's doing so again next month in what may prove to be his last.
I have never met Mr Murdoch, but at times when I worked at Downing Street he seemed like the 24th member of the cabinet. His voice was rarely heard (but, then, the same could have been said of many of the other 23) but his presence was always felt.
No big decision could ever be made inside No 10 without taking account of the likely reaction of three men - Gordon Brown, John Prescott and Rupert Murdoch. On all the really big decisions, anybody else could safely be ignored.
I was reminded just how touchy Downing Street is about Mr Murdoch when I submitted the manuscript of my book, The Spin Doctor's Diary, to the Cabinet Office. The government requested some changes, as is its right. When the first batch came through, it was no surprise that Tony Blair's staff were deeply unhappy. The real surprise was that no fewer than a third of their objections related to one man - not Tony Blair or even Gordon Brown, as I might have expected, but Rupert Murdoch.
In my first few weeks as Alastair Campbell's deputy, I was told by somebody who would know that we had assured Mr Murdoch we wouldn't change policy on Europe without talking to him first. The Cabinet Office insisted that I couldn't say in my book that such a promise had been made because I did not know it for a fact. With some reluctance I turned the sentence around so that it read: "Apparently News International are under the impression we won't make any changes without asking them." Every other request relating to Murdoch was rejected. It seemed to me that the government was simply trying to avoid political embarrassment on a subject of wholly legitimate public interest.
All discussions - and let us hope the word "negotiations" isn't more appropriate - with Rupert Murdoch and with Irwin Stelzer, his representative on earth, were handled at the very highest level. For the rest of us, the continued support of the News International titles was supposed to be self-evident proof of the value of this special relationship. The Sun and the Times, in particular, received innumerable "scoops" and favours. In return, New Labour got very sympathetic coverage from newspapers that are bought and read by classic swing voters - on the face of it, too good a deal to pass up.
In fact, New Labour gave away too much and received too little that it couldn't have expected to get anyway.
Rupert Murdoch loves power and loves the feeling that he has the ear of other powerful men. Who else was going to give him that feeling? Would he get it from William Hague? Iain Duncan Smith? Michael Howard?
It may be that Rupert Murdoch has never once vetoed a government decision, nor tried to do so. I just don't know. What I do know is that, as the entries in my book show, I spent far too much time trying to stop ministers saying anything positive about the euro. When two prominent Conservatives, furious at Tory policy on gay rights and Section 28, decided to defect to Labour, I made them say that it was over our management of the economy. I attended many crisis meetings at the Home Office - the influence of the Murdoch press on immigration and asylum policy would make a fascinating PhD thesis.
Now Mr Murdoch tells us he might support David Cameron, and his papers take regular potshots at Gordon Brown. Do Messrs Cameron and Brown take notice? You bet they do. In a close election the support of News International will be courted as never before. They know that Rupert Murdoch likes to back a winner and that it is support in the country that separates the winners from the losers, but they won't dare risk leaving it to the voters. So in the meantime, Rupert, much as it pains me to say so, you can keep the award.
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More on Murdoch
"James Harding was, I think, a very good editor for The Times. He made the terrible mistake of backing President Obama in The Times in the election and was removed from his job. So the idea that this is an organisation that has respect for serious journalism and serious independence is a wild fantasy."
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ha, yes, Knowles is Clifford - took me a couple of googling attempts to pin down that reference.
I think his total lack of remorse at the impact he'd had on his victims makes it OK for me to mention, on the occasion of his death, that Clifford was the subject of one of the most brilliantly concise and funny letters that Viz have had in their letters column.
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Originally posted by Evariste Euler Gauss View Postha, yes, Knowles is Clifford - took me a couple of googling attempts to pin down that reference.
I think his total lack of remorse at the impact he'd had on his victims makes it OK for me to mention, on the occasion of his death, that Clifford was the subject of one of the most brilliantly concise and funny letters that Viz have had in their letters column.
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Disney and Fox, happy ever after.
Once upon a time this was what a Disney Fox collaboration looked like...
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